A gorgeous painting of Australopithecus afarensis by paleoartist Viktor Deak. They’ve uncovered hundreds of these guys, who seem to have been around for about a million years three to four million years ago, and though back in the Lucy days it was thought that she and her species were our direct ancestors, now it’s thought that Australopithecines were related to our direct ancestors, but didn’t lead eventually to us. Sadly, they were on a dead end evolutionary path, and at some point in the three million years since this picture would have been taken, her line and all the genetic info it contained came to an end. The oblivion of extinction. Still, she takes a nice painting.
Brick's Science 